1 Corinthians 1

I intend to post some Ben Witherington quotes from each chapter of 1 Corinthians. Please excuse all of the exclamation points and capital letters. That's just how I got it down in my notes--it seemed to capture the passion of the moment.

Here goes chapter one:

• The one who will judge you on that day is the one who will stand up for you on that day. Your judge is the same one who died for you. When you stand before Him on that day and He raises the gavel to pronounce judgment, you will see the scars in His hands...as He says, “No condemnation.”
• This model of the pastor-superstar disables the church. What happens when he’s gone? It’s about what God does. It’s about enabling others.
• You can’t understand resurrection until you understand death.
• The cross is the ultimate critique of all human pride and pomposity. We failed, and only God succeeded.
• The only way for Him to save us was to become fully human. And yet He couldn’t do it if He was just a man. It had to be as the God-man. Only one Mediator between God and man. One for all, once for all.
• There is a mystery to suffering in life. For me to have life required the death of the only-begotten Son.
• There is a difference between common sense and Christian sense!!! What may seem to make sense to you DOES NOT NECESSARILY EQUAL God’s way.
• Greco-Roman education won’t cut it…won’t save you. Salvation comes from REVELATION, not through humanly achieved EDUCATION.
• Our world assumes that INFORMATION=TRANSFORMATION. Sadly, this is not enough. The battle is in the heart. Getting people in the pews does not make them a Christian. They may know a lot about Jesus, but do they KNOW Jesus?
• The Jews seek signs—(Remember with Jesus? “What sign will you give?”) Paul says that demanding a sign nullifies faith. “Faith seeking understanding.” Believing leads to seeing.
  Greeks demanded wisdom—they wanted it to make sense to them.
  Your people will make the same demands.You must start where they are, but you better not LEAVE THEM THERE.
• If you simply try to boil it down to where they are, you’ll end up with “pablum for the masses.” Instead, you need to boil up their minds to the level of the text.